Part 2 The word (foreknowledge) in Romans 9 God chooses us before we do any good or bad and uses a example of Jacob and Esau. The decison was not based upon Esau rejecting the birthright but God chooseing Jacob over Esau. It is clear--Read it carefully. God makes this decision before we are born, in His foreknowedge, so that His Election is based upon His Calling not our will. Please read it and reread it. Thank you May God Bless
@Stan6468 Where is the word (foreknowledge) in Rom9?
The verse says "in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.”
God didn't elect Jacob to salvation & Esau to Hell. It says God elected the older to server the younger.
God Chose Jacob, not Easu to be the Father of the nation the Messiah would come through.
"...the people of Israel. ...and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ"Rom 9:4-5
Mr. Geisler made a bad assumption and has a incorrect understanding of the word (foreknowledge) He assumed it meant (someone who accepts the Gospel) Due to this misunderstanding he says those who believe in Doctrine of Grace (calvism) reject or don't follow the concept of (foreknowlege). This is absolutely wrong. God's foreknowledge is defined in Romans 9 chapter. We must follow God's defination of words not man's. Part 1 answer
Nowhere does the Bible tell us what exactly God foreknows about the elect. Nor does it say that Christ came to be the propitiation for the sins ‘of the elect only.’ To conclude otherwise is to follow fallen human logic to its conclusion. This is usually done after changing definitions of words and/or adding to the Bible which both sides of this argument practice frequently.
The Holy Spirit has great power but does not force. Nowhere in the Bible does God force any decision upon man. And that forceful spirit that causes people to fall over when Benny Hinn touches them--that's not God's Spirit. God respects the will of man and does not force it.
@Aslak1Simonsen In Calvinism you are saved and regnerated before you believe. Scripture says you are saved and regenerated as a RESULT of believing. "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."Jn20:30
@shteve77. Yes you may have life if you believe, but that is talking about justification to eternal life, which you get by the result of doing the act of believing on Him who was crucified for you. Always look at the context which a word stands. Life doesent always mean spiritual life which you get in regeneration called the new birth from above. It is written that those who believed on His name was born of God and not of the will of man. Can it even be more clear?
@Aslak1Simonsen Sory, but John is telling the people reading His gospel that He recorded the miracles that Jesus did so that they might believe that Jesus is the Son of God because BY believing they would have life. Until a person believes they are dead. John1:12 make it clear that it is to those who believe, to those who receive Him, that God makes His children. "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God".
@shteve77.I believe John is saying that, those who believed on His name, who recieved Him GAVE he right to become children of God. So, those who believe on Jesus, have God given authority, and right to become Gods children and to be conformed unto His image. Then I believe John goes on to tell us something of the nature of those children. They were born NOT of the will of man, but of God. However, nice to meet you. There is alot of info abut this, and its better to read that, then comments on YT
@Aslak1Simonsen John is saying that it is to THOSE that believe, to those that RECIEVE Him, to these God grants the right to become His children. The fact that someone believes that Jesus is the Christ doesn't save them just of itself. God promises to do something for those who recieve Him. It is God's will and God's choice to make men His children and God promises to do this for ALL WHO BELIEVE. It doesn't say "to all that God chooses" it says to all who believe on Christ.
@shteve77.. Yes and our old faith is and have always been that those who believe, is those who are chosen of God. Which is aboundently explained in John 6. It is God makes us willing to believe. simple, logical, scriptural and true.
@Aslak1Simonsen The Holy Spirit certainly convicts men but He doesn't "make them willing to believe". He allows them to accept or refuse salvation. If God chooses who to save He must force to believe or else He can't be sure that those He has chosen will believe. Further to this, your assertion is denied by scriptures such as Luk7:30 "But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.)" How could they reject God's purpose?
@shteve77. Well you must agree that your assertion goes against symbolism used speaking of salvation throughout the whole Bible. (born again, raised from death, Gods heart operation in Ezek 36, God freeing you from sin-slavery, the circomsission of the Heart, God gives spiritual eyes and ears to those He saves etc etc) And He certainly does this with force, the great transforming force of the Holy Spirit, which is sent into the hearts of those who believe.
@Aslak1Simonsen Yes I certainly agree the Holy Spirit comes in and tranforms those who believe, but in Calvinism they are transformed and regenerated BEFORE they have believed and this is non biblical.
@shteve77. Yes, sorry Im wrong there I ment to write that God does that so that the result is that they believe. to say that ppl with a heart of stone, dead and none existing spiritual life is a description of people who are believers is torture of scripture indeed. please think through it, you may be wrong as me also, but I believe Im right and you are wrong.
@Aslak1Simonsen Well if Calvinism is correct then those that perish because God created them intending for them to perish. Scripture says thae the Pharisees (who perished in their sin) perished because they rejeted God's purpose for their lives, showing that God intended something else for them!
@shteve77. Yes, sorry Im wrong there I ment to write that God does that so that the result is that they believe. to say that ppl with a heart of stone, dead and none existing spiritual life is a description of people who are believers is torture of scripture indeed. please think through it, you may be wrong as me also, but I believe Im right and you are wrong.
The pharisees are rejecting Gods Law and intention because the are slaves of their own sin.. but you should dobbel check your translation of that verse... my translation is different.
@Aslak1Simonsen Sorry, but that makes no sense. How can anyone reject the "intention" of the God of Calvinism? What was it that God intended for them and why didn't He make them do it if He intended it for them?
I quoted the NIV "rejected God’s purpose for themselves", The NASB says "rejected God’s purpose for themselves", the KNJV says "rejected the will of God for themselves", the ESV "rejected the purpose of God for themselves".
@Aslak1Simonsen And Acts7:51 "You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!".
In what way did these people resist the Holy Spirit? What was it the Holy Spirit was wanting them to do, and why didn't they do it?
@shteve77.. Yes and our old faith is and have always been that those who believe, is those who are chosen of God. Which is aboundently explained in John 6. It is God who makes us willing to believe. simple, logical, scriptural and true.
@Aslak1Simonsen He is confused. Just like Calvinists do believe that one has to accept salvation which is the gift of God. We do have to accept it. It is faith. But we can only do this by grace. the question is how can we accept the gift. not if we accept it or not.
If God suspends Himself to fre will He pauses His own existence which is impossible. God cannot have billions of attributes and virtues acting in power independent.Where would His personal freedom be.? A power existing not His own or a love or a knowledge means God is not free.Virtue outside of God acting independently means God is not living His Virtues and Attributes un interrupted therefore suspending His life, impossible.All I ask is you think about what I'm writting before you react.
@polopowers1 Scripture says "The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become....The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain."
If God here is the one directing everything men do including their wicked acts then He is either skitzo or insincere when He says He is grieved and His heart filled with pain.
Faith is not produced by human intellect but above personal reason. Norman says I'm smart enough to have genuine faith and choose it. By grace are you saved through faith that not of yourself. He believes God can suspend His knowledge and power unto independent free will power. This would mean God, self existing life by virtue and attribute suspends His life for millions independent virtues of faith with attributes of power But God cannot suspend attributes He would suspend Himself in doing so.
@polopowers1 You appear to be saying that an omnipotent, all knowing God can't create creatures and give them freedom to make free choices or else He ceases to be God? Why can't a God who has all power and can do what ever He chooses, choose to make men with a free will and allow them to choose to do either good or evil?
@shteve77 I'm not sure anyone has ever changed their opinion on this topic on either side by utubt dialogue.But I'll give what I understand fron scribture. First a question which came first God's substance ( His Spirit ) or His Holy Character love mercy goodness etc. ?They are simultaneous.God declares His glory of perpetual life the simultaneous Spirit, Virtue existence never being suspended.God cannot suspend knowledge or power God must perpetuate Himself in Spirit and Virtue. ( more next )
@polopowers1 Look, what you are really claiming is that God who can do anything he wants and by nature has personal freedom, is limited and He is not actually free to allow any of His creatures to make free choices, otherwise somehow He is not God anymore. If God has chosen to allow men freedom to make choices then He is free to do that. The second point is that if men are not free to make choices then God is responsible for all they do, making God the source of all wickedness and evil.
@Aslak1Simonsen In conclusion I don't believe that God is responsible for sin and for evil. Men are responsible for choosing to do evil.
God himself in Jer7 denies being responsible for these wicked people murdering their own children. You believe God willed and planned for them to do it.
"Jeremiah 7:31, They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind."
@shteve77. So you dont believe God is responsible for what has taken place in history so far? I guess you agree that sin has been a part of history, and the logical undenible conclusion must be that you dont see the Creator God, as responsible for the history of the world. And that is just unbiblical. If you believe those scriputres which you quoted denies Gods controll over everything which happens in time and space, you must take a better look, and reflect and meditate over them.
@Aslak1Simonsen No I don't believe God is responsible for sin. God allows sin. If you believe God is responsible for sin then you are worshipping a god who is evil. Scripture says God "is light, in Him is no darkenss at all". The Calvinist God is the source of all darkness and evil. I quoted Jer7 where God himself says He is not responsible for what those people did, you didn't even attempt to explain what the verse is actually saying if I am reading it wrongly? You should meditate over it.
@apollos6640, I agree with everything you said except your use of the word arbitrary. God is a God of purpose. Read "The Purpose-Driven Life". Rick Warren will tell you that God is a God of purpose because Rick is a monergist like I am and His thinking is shaped by the view of the sovereignty of God presented in the Bible.
You lost some credability when you cited rick warren in a positve light. Then I read your posts and you lost the rest of your credability. What Bible are you studying?!?
(your quote) "God withholds salvation from the 'non-elect'. He doesn't want them to be saved. He tells them they can be saved but withholds it from them."
So you believe that God is a liar? I won't even list the scriptures you have buthered here. Seek for the truth brother while it can still be found.
You lost some credability when you cited rick warren in a positve light. Then I read your posts and you lost the rest of your credability. What Bible are you studying?!?
(your quote) "God withholds salvation from the 'non-elect'. He doesn't want them to be saved. He tells them they can be saved but withholds it from them."
So you believe that God is a liar? I won't even list the scriptures you have buthered here. Seek for the truth brother while it can still be found.
@Jared104 I've summarized yur views, if I'm wrong, explain it to me in detail. Thanks :)
"God arbitralily (or for His own GLORY) purposely creates & knits ALL people DEAD in the womb, w/ a Sinful Nature & Sovereignly Ordained to SIN, born DEAD, lacking ALL ability to repent, the VAST MAJORITY PREDESTINED for Eternal Damnation "Though they were NOT YET BORN", outside of ANY of their actions "BEFORE having done ANYTHING either goor or bad, in order that Gods purpose of ELECTION might continue."
@shteve77, God loves because it's who He is. If He has chosen you and not someone else, it's not because of anything good in you so there's no room for boasting. You don't ask why He chose you just like if you're born a prince you don't ask why, you just accept it.
@shteve77, God does not withhold faith and repentance from the elect. He keeps His word when He says that those who come to Him He will not cast out. Like I said before, if election is not unconditional then His love is not unconditional. He simply loves because He loves..
@Jared104 God withholds salvation from the 'non-elect'. He doesn't want them to be saved. He tells them they can be saved but withholds it from them.
The God is the Bible is love but how is it 'loving' for God to create most of mankind (prepared as vessels of destruction), let the sun rise on them for a few short years while they toil in a wicked, fallen world full of misery and death and then burn them for all eternity in Hell? How can you say God loves them when He could have saved them?
@Shteve77 , Jared104 said, "For one thing, when God saves us, He regenerates us and grants us faith and repentance."
MAN is created DEAD in the WOMB by God, God is purposely creating defective creatures 'in His image', preprogrammed to Sin & Only Sin, lacking ALL ability to Repent or Beg for Mercy, PREDESTINED for the Lake of Fire, even HATED like Esau, "BEFORE doing anything either good or bad", then is CONDEMNED for doing the very thing he was, PREDESTINED & Ordained to do! That's NOT justice
@Shteve77 imagine if I said, "Our parents sinned in breaking the Law, they were sentenced to DEATH. The JUDGE was pleased with their Sin, according to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having PURPOSED to ORDER IT to His own glory."
@shteve77 When Jesus came to save sinners was that showing that God is not grieved by sin? God was going to pardon sinners who deserved their punishment. So, did that show that He didn't hate sin?
@Jared104 If God is the one who decrees men to sin in the first place then how can they go against God's omnipotenet decree and not sin?
Do you honestly think that God causing the sun to rise each day on the lost for a few years while they toil in the fallen world only so He can send them to Hell for all eternity is LOVE?
@shteve77, I prefer the way that the Westminster Confession of Faith says it. Notice how carefully they worded this section concerning the fall:\
Our first parents, being seduced by the subtilty and temptations of Satan, sinned, in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin, God was pleased, according to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory.
@Jared104 I agree that God obviously permitted the fall, but in Calvinsim God controls all things by sovereign decree. Do you believe He actually decreed the fall?
@Jared104 If you believe God only permitted the fall then you are certainly at odds with what Calvinism teaches. Calvinists often say that God permitted it, that God allowed it but if you push them hard enough they will admit that it was a foregone conclusion and that God indeed did decree it.
You haven't answered, Do you think that God causing the sun to rise each day on the lost for a few years while they toil in a fallen world only so He can send them to Hell for all eternity is LOVE?
@Jared104 The god of Calvinism taunts the unbeliever saying "that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved" (Rom10:9) all the while knowing that he (the god of Calvinism) has withheld from them the faith to do so. Calvinism presents a false gospel (good news) that for most people is no good news at all, and doesn't really offer eternal life or salvation.
@Jared104 7, "if a judge pardons two people on death row when there were four in all, it is no injustice for Him to let the other two die."
It is UNJUST to let those 2 UNREPENTANT Sinners back on the street-- they've done that in Massachusetts, and one sinner was pardoned 2x, each time he was caught & convicted of pedephilia. They finally caught him a 3rd time and had to Try him in a different STATE because of the Unjust JUDGE!
Your argument fails miserably! There's no way to justify it
@apollos6640 For one thing, when God saves us, He regenerates us and grants us faith and repentance. God meets the requirements for salvation. The judge is not exercising justice but mercy.
He loves them with common grace according to Jesus. He causes the sun to rise on the just and the unjust. And, this is the basis for us loving everyone, even our enemies.
@Jared104 Do you honestly think that God causing the sun to rise each day on the lost for a few years while they toil in the fallen world only so He can send them to Hell for all eternity is LOVE? I don't think so.
@Jared104 God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at His own pleasure arranged it.” [John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Section 7]
Even the fall of Adam, and through him the fall of the race, was not by chance or accident, but was so ordained in the secret counsels of God.” [Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, p. 234]
@Jared104 “Surely, if God had not willed the fall, He could, and no doubt would, have prevented it; but He did not prevent it: ergo He willed it. And if He willed it, He certainly decreed it” [Jerome Zanchius, The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination]
“Not only did God have a perfect foreknowledge of the outcome of Adam’s trial; not only did His omniscient eye see Adam eating of the forbidden fruit, but He decreed beforehand that he should do so.” [A.W. Pink The Sovereignty of God]
@shteve77, I don't believe of course that God loves the world in the same way that He loves His own people. God did not make Adam and Eve sin. He gave them freewill. You cannot have love without the ability to choose vice over virtue. They sinned of their own accord.
@shteve77, if a judge pardons two people on death row when there were four in all, it is no injustice for Him to let the other two die. He didn't have to pardon any of them but chose to pardon two of them. The other two got what they deserved but the two that were pardoned got what they didn't deserve. It's the same way with us. If we go to hell, we get what we deserve. If we go to heaven, we get what we don't deserve. That's the point I was trying to make with the previous illustration.
@Jared104 Firstly, in Calvinism it is the judge who decreed that the men would sin and be on death row in the first place.
Secondly, you still have the same problem. It's got nothing to do with what they deserve. If the judge pardons one and makes sure the other is executed you certainly wouldn't believe the judge if He said that He loved the other man and also wanted to set him free aswell.
A better example rather than two drowning children is two people who are homeless because they burned their houses down. You give both of them an apartment for a while (common grace), but eventually you give one of them a mansion andrhe other one you kick out on the street. They both deserved to be on the street b/c they burned their house down. But, you only give one of them a place to live. There was no injustice.
@Jared104 Your example fails, because the same analogy appllies. If you give one a mansion and you kick the other out on the street, no one would ever believe you if you said you loved both of them, and you wanted both of them to live in a palace.
Hell was made for the devil and his angels according to Jesus. According to Paul, the vessels of wrath are being prepared for destruction and in the context, there does seem to be some degree of intentionality in their preparation. Hell is the wrath of God. The wrath of God is prepared for the devil but the children of wrath are prepared for hell.
@Jared104 Calvinists confuse Total Depravity, --- Only those who are regenerate can respond in saving faith to the Gospel. The Gospel message enables them to respond and ensures that they will if they are elect and if it is the appointed time. As Peter says, we were regenerated by the Word of God. It's the Gospel that causes the elect to be born again.
@Jared104 It's when believe that they are born again, not before. It is BY BELIEVING that we receive life.
Scripture says "But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."Jn20:31
@Jared104 So the Calvinist God has compassion on those that He created only for the purpose of burning in Hell for His glory?
If you came across two drowning children and you saved one of them, and then just watched while the other drowned (even though you could have saved the second child) would anyone believe you if you said "I really did love that second child, I really did want to save them". No! No one would believe you.
desires all men to come to repentance. But there is something He desires more. In Arminianism, it is the preservation of man's freewill. In Calvinism, it is His own glory.
@Jared104 So the all powerful and sovereign Calvinist God WANTS to save all men, but He is unable to, because it will reduce his Glory? Is this what you are saying?
@ 6:30 "if it depends on your receiving it, then you get the credit" Yep! That's exactly correct! If you DO something to earn your salvation, then YOU CAN BOAST. That's why Paul said that your faith is NOT of yourself "lest any man should boast".
@ 5:19 THIS IS THE APEX OF DISHONESTY!!!! DR. GEISLER STOPPED THE READING AT VERSE 12!!! Verse 12 ends with a COLON, not a PERIOD. Please continue on into verse 13:
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (Joh 1:12-13).
See it?
...NOT of blood, NOR of the will of the flesh, NOR of the will of man, BUT OF GOD.
@ 4:35 The dead man must be made alive, in order to receive the gift. Dr. Geisler, please make a trip to your local cemetery and prophesy to those dead dry bones. According to your fallacious logic, those dead, dry bones will dig their way out of their graves to receive the gift of God. NONSENSE!
Behold, I [Jehovah] will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: (Eze 37:5).
Life must come to the dead sinner BEFORE he can receive anything, right, Mr. Deadman in the local cemetery?
@ 4:14 You must be siting John 3:36 (the "Dr" misquotes that verse). Well, in the very same chapter Jesus says,
"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. (Joh 3:19-20).
Could it be that "Dr" Geisler believes that man's basically good, apart from God?
@ 3:50 Yes, Dr Geisler, the Father must "give" you...All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (Joh 6:37). No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: (Joh 6:44).
@ 4:00 Oh, but it DOES teach that, "Dr" Geisler. ...as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. (Act 13:48). Notice it doesn't say "those who believed were ordained, but rather, those who were ordained, believed.
In Matthew 5:43-45, Jesus tells us not to love only those who love us but to also love our enemies. It would be hypocritical for God to tell us to love our enemies and for Him to not love His enemies. If conditional election is true, then God is only loving those who love Him.
43 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:43-45 ESV
Unconditional love is inexplicably bound to the idea of unconditional election. God's electing love is unconditional. Conditional election makes God's love conditional.
Scripture says we were all God's enemies, but that He so LOVED the World He sent His Son to die for men.
So if Christ loved me and you (as former enemies with God) and if He "unconditionally elected" us, then why does He not uncondtionally elect all men. Does He love them too?
Paul talks about election in Ephesians 1. Then, in Ephesians 2, he says that we are dead in trespasses and sins. The fact that we are dead in trespasses and sins makes election necessary. John Wesley, the Arminian evangelist, believed in Total Depravity the same way that I do, but he countered it with a confusing doctrine called Prevenient Grace that is taught nowhere in scripture.
@Jared104 Rev20"each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death."
No, the fact that we are dead in our sins means that the second death is inevitible. Like a man on death row, His fate is sealed and there is nothing He can do to save himself.
The good news is that Christ took that death for all men and offers forgiveness to all who believe.
@Jared104 Calvinists confuse Total Depravity, (Man's inability to do anything to make himself right with God and remove His guilt of sin), with a supposed INABILITY to even simply believe the message of the gospel. That Jesus is the Son of God, died for our sins and rose from the dead.
I got excited in that last post. But, the way I see it, you can't have unconditional love without unconditional election. If God saved us because of anything good in us, notonly would there be no reason for Christ to die, He would be only laying down His life for those who loved Him. Don't even pagans love those who love them? While we were yetsinners, Christ died for the ungodly. That completely obliterates conditional election.
@Jared104 There is nothing good in any of us. That is the whole reason we need a Saviour. If men were sinless then there would not be a reason for Christ to die. The fact that sinners simply believe the message of the gospel doesn't mean there is "anything good in them". Because we are sinners we need a Saviour. That does not mean that God has to unconditionally elect us. Scripture declares God loves all men and wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.1Tim2:4.
I don't know about all that buddy. I like the simplicity of election. It's God, son. God's the one callin' the shots, not you, me or anybody else. Makes me wanna shout hallelujah and run around the church. I love Him so much. He died for me and for the rest of His sheep. I'm still amazed by grace. Grace made the difference for me.
If someone gives you 10 G's, you could still get partial credit for it. Some people would foolishly say that they were thankful that they were smart enough to take the money thereby taking some of the credit for themselves.
@Jared104 But Jesus didn't shy away from giving credit to those who expressed great faith in Him... (Matt 8:9-11, 15:26-28)... Calvinists are the ones who scream "bloody murder!" about "taking credit" or "robbing God of glory"...
@Jared104 If someone handed you $10,000 and said, here take it, it's yours, you would hardly go and boast to your friends "I was so smart I got $10,000, or look at what I was cleaver enough to take). No! You would tell them that someone gave it to you as a gift, that you didn't need to do anything to earn it, they required nothing from you they just handed it to you. The person giving the gift is the one who gets all the credit.
Beginning @1:20, Dr. Geisler compares two texts (Rom.8:29 & 1Pet.1:2), and seems to assert they are speaking of the same thing: God's "foreknowledge".
Rom.8:29-- "foreknow" (Gk. προέγνω, proegnō) is a VERB, not a noun! It means God intimately "knew" His people, as a husband "knows" his bride.
1 Pet.1:2-- "foreknowledge" (Gk. πρόγνωσιν, prognōsin) is a NOUN, not a verb!
*This is a fundamental exegetical error on Geisler's part, therefore, his conclusion is erroneous.
@rkg62976 If that be the case . It just proves He is Omniscient ! A all knowing GOD of the past, presence. Any the future.. {DEF-Having total knowledge; knowing everything: an omniscient deity; the omniscient narrator. n. 1. One having total knowledge. He having total knowledge.} GOD knew who would chose to be saved by faith in His word . Just proves He is GOD ! Who is all knowing ,all seeing, and ever present.
@ylism The fact that in Rom.8:29 the word "foreknew" is a VERB, proves that God, from eternity past, chose to enter into relationship with His people (the "elect"; those who were "predestined" unto salvation).
You seem to be missing the important point of the exegesis of Rom.8:29, as opposed to 1Pet.1:2... as does Dr. Geisler.
The text (Rom.8:29) is NOT asserting that "GOD knew who would choose"; rather, it's stating that God "knew" His people intimately from eternity past.
@rkg62976 Your missing the point as well. Of what i was saying. God said He knew the end from the beginning. Isa: 46,8 -13. Yes He is talking to Israel. His personal attributes never change. Or He would not be GOD ! That includes everyone that would be saved all through history intimately. Is that so hard to grasp. Verb's expresses existence, action, or occurrence.There's no problem with both in context. He needed not say who choose to be saved. He is talking to the church / the foreknown.
@ylism When Dr. Geisler asserts that one must have faith in order to receive salvation. Is he asserting that everyone has the ability to come to faith in Christ? I think he is.
However, the Bible is clear that man can only exercise faith (the act of believing) because God gives it as a gift (Eph.2:8, Gk.πίστεως, pisteōs-- NOUN).
Therefore, the verbal form of faith (Gk.πιστεύοντας, pisteuontas-- the "act" of believing) can only come after the noun (faith as a gift) has been given by God.
ylism said, "God said He knew the end from the beginning". I am not disputing that God "knows" the end from the beginning. That's not the point of our dialogue. Rather, it is whether God's knowledge stems from:
1) His passively taking in information as He looks down the corridors of time from eternity past (Arminian/Geisler), or,
2) His decreeing all events that would take place in His created universe (including evil) from eternity past (Reformed/Calvinist).
@rkg62976 There is no darkness in God. No shades of gray. Only pure light. God would never go against Himself. These systems are of man thoughts. I agree with the word of God. No need to form fit anything then. Phil 2; 12 Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Rightly dividing the word of God. The best and only way to live.
God makes evil to come to pass. Is that what you think. God does allow bad things to happen. Never to hurt the one whom He died for
@ylism Do you believe that evil comes from a being completely independent of God? Are you a dualist?
If not, then you must admit that not even Satan can do anything outside of God's decree. And that, since there is evil in the fallen world, then God must have a purpose for it. I believe He does. God does nothing capriciously. He always has a purpose. "The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble" (Prov.16:4).
@rkg62976 U asked." Are you a dualist?" NO. God is not evil ! Satan is, and was cast down. Yes God does allow the devil to test. Take Job for instance. God does allow evil into our life. But never to destroy us. Evil men & satan do have a place in God's eternal plan. Take His chosen people Israel. At times He brought an evil people against them. To judge there sin's against Him. Does that make Him evil ? No. Far from it.
@ylism "God hath decreed in himself...freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established..." [1689 Baptist Confession, ch.3, sec.1].
1) God decreed that evil would be;
2) He is not the author of it, only secondary causes are.
@rkg62976 Why quote the Westminster confession of faith? It is not inspired but simply the words of men.
If God has pre-determined everything that will come to pass including all sin then God must be the author of sin. If some one does good He only does it because God decreed him to do good and so God is responsible. If someone does evil then the ONLY factor in deciding if that evil will occur is God's decree. It occurs only because God willed it too happen, making God the Author of that sin.
@shteve77 I quoted the Westminster Confession precisely because you have just made the mistake that the authors of the confession denied.
1)You fail to distinguish between God as the primary/ultimate cause of all things, and all creatures as secondary/proximate causes. 2)You fail to even give a definition of "responsibility". Could you please provide me with what you feel is the proper definition?
*I assert that God is not "responsible" for ANYTHING (including the creation); He spoke-It was
@rkg62976 Just because men deny something doesn't make them right. It is complete nonsense to say that God absolutely and completely controls everything that happens, but that men who do only what God has pre-determined them to do, are some how responsible for the evil that God decreed they will commit. Calvinist's proclaim a 'holy' God who controls everything men do and them blames men for doing the very thing that He caused them to do by His sovereign decree.
@shteve77 "Calvinist's proclaim a 'holy' God who controls everything men do and them blames men for doing the very thing that He caused them to do by His sovereign decree"
Wow, I don't know how much more fallacious mud-slinging I can take. So if you cannot even define for me what "responsibility" ("responsibility" also implies "blame") means, how do you expect to even have a conversation?
Please don't respond anymore, if you cannot give a rational argument.
@rkg62976 Responsible-"Being the primary cause of something and so able to be blamed or credited for it."
In Calvinism God decrees everything that happens. Everything that occurs including all mens' wicked sins happen only because God decreed them to happen. If God didn't decree an evili act it wouldn't occur. In Calvinism God is the source and author of all sin. In Jer7:31 the reason they murdered their own children was because God wanted them to, God planned it and God brought it to pass.
@shteve77 Your definition of "responsibility" is flawed.
Responsibility:
1) implies "the giving of a response";
2) implies an higher authority to whom to give a response.
Therefore,
1) God does not have to "give a response" for anything He does, because,
2) There is no higher authority to whom God must give a response.
Hence: God is not responsible for anything (including creation: He spoke, and it was); He simply works all things according to the good council of His own will (Eph.1:11).
@rkg62976 Firstly, my definition of responsibility is straight out of the English dictionary, and I am communicating to you what I mean when I say that in Calvinism God is responsible for all sin.
Honestly, how can you say God is not responsible for anything including creation? God created. He is the only cause. He is the one who gets the credit. If it were not for Him the universe would not exist. In Calvinism all sin has been planned and decreed by God. He brings it to pass.
@shteve77 I would like to know what Dictionary you are using that gives you the fallacious definition of "responsibility" you provided. Reference please? Not only this, but "dictionaries" are not theological, or philosophical.
Notice that I did NOT deny that God Created all things; you are failing to recognize my statement in light of the definition of "responsibility" I gave (which is theologically, and grammatically sound...unlike yours).
@rkg62976 It is word for word from the Oxford English dictionary. It's also in their online dictionary, I just checked. If you are going to communicate using English then you can't just invent your own definitions of words.
Forget the word responsible. If God decrees all things that come to pass, including all sin then God and God alone is the reason that all sin happens. If He didn't decree it, it would not have happened. God is the cause, God is the one who is accountable, liable, guilty.
@shteve77 Do you believe that God knew there would be sin in the world at the time He created it? Are you and Open Theist (utter heresy) which denies God's omniscience?
If you're not an Open Theist, then you must affirm that God created knowing His creation would fall into corruption. Now, the question is:
1) does your god simply react to man's fall? Or,
2) did God have purpose with regard to the fall.
@rkg62976 Yes, God knew Adam would fall. Yes God planned for a Saviour even before the fall because it would happen. The point is, did God plan to send a saviour because He knew Adam would freely choose to sin and bring all mankind under condemnation? Or Did God plan to send a Saviour because God decreed Adam to fall? I ask you again, If God decreed Adam to fall could Adam have gone against God's decree and obeyed? Did Adam really have a choice? If not, how is Adam guilty?
@shteve77 Your question is in regard to what is known as "supralapsarianism", and "infralapsarianism"...there are monergists (Reformed/Calvinists) who take the former, and those who take the latter view.
Yes, God decreed that Adam would fall, and there was no way that Adam could not have fallen; yet, he did it by his own choice (this is called "compatibilism").
Q. "...how is Adam guilty?"
A. One must have a proper definition of "responsibility" in order to answer this question.
@rkg62976 If there is no way that Adam could not have fallen then actually Adam had no choice. The Calvinist God wanted Adam to fall and God used His power to make Adam fall. You make God responsible for sin, not Adam. If Adam had no choice and only did what God made him do by sovereign decree then the only factor involved in whether Adam sinned was God's choice and not Adam's.
@shteve77 I would encourage you to study this issue further. I have said all I can say. If you don't see the clear examples of "compatibilism" in the Scriptures (Gen.50; Is.10; Acts 4:27-28...etc.), then I cannot help you any further than I have already attempted.
*For an excellent discussion of Theodicy (reconciling a Holy, Righteous God with the evil that exists in His created order), I recommend Dr. Gordon H. Clark's work, "God and Evil: the Problem Solved".
@rkg62976...Still you haven't answered the question from Jer??? If God didn't want those people to murder their own children then why did He decree them to do it? The ONLY reason in Calvinism that those people killed their own children was because God decreed it. If He never thought of this crime for them to commit and had never caused it by decree it would never have happened.
@rkg62976 The Calvinist God decrees and brings to pass the very sin He says grieves Him. The ONLY reason men sin, in Calvinism is because God wants them to. Jer7:31"They have built the high places....to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind."
The Calvinists believe that it was God's will these people murder their children, that He decreed it and wanted it to happen.
@rkg62976 Yes all men are condemned because of Adam's sin and sin becuase of the sinful nature they inherited. But why did Adam sin. Adam did not have a sinful nature. In Calvinism Adam sinned because God decreed Him too. Did Adam really have a choice if His sovereign, omnipotent creator decreed Adam to sin then could Adam have obeyed and not sinned?
In Calvinism of course people sin becuase God wants them to. If He didn't want them to He wouldn't have decreed it.
@rkg62976 If God decreed Adam to sin then God imposed Irresistible evil on Adam. Scripture says "God is light, in Him is no darkness at all", yet the Calvinist God is the source of all evil, He planned it all and brings it to pass by His Omnipotent decree.
If someone shoots a person with a gun, the one who fired the gun is the cause. He can hardly blame the bullet for doing what He made the bullet do. If God is responsible for everything that happens then God is responsible for all sin.
@shteve77 "If God is responsible for everything that happens then God is responsible for all sin." And I noticed you didn't address anything I said. You didn't (nor have you) given a definition of "responsibility".
Who was "responsible" for the crucifixion? Acts.4:27-28-- was it not wicked men?
But yet God "predestined" it to take place. So we have:
1) God's decree (which is infallible);
2) wicked men being held responsible for their own actions.
@shteve77 "Although God created man upright and perfect...Satan using the subtlety of the serpent to subdue Eve, then by her seducing Adam, who, without any compulsion, did willfully transgress the law of their creation, and the command given unto them, in eating the forbidden fruit, which God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory"
@rkg62976 If God decrees all things that come to pass then God didn't just allow Adam to fall, God caused it by His sovereign, omnipotent decree. Do you believe God decreed the fall of Adam? Do you believe Adam actually had a choice and could have chosen to obey?
I also asked about Jer7. Do you believe that God decreed those parents to murder their children?
@shteve77 If you believe that any mere creature (including Satan and the fallen angels) can do anything at all completely independent of God's decree, then you are a dualist.
You have more in common with Zoroastrianism than biblical Christianity.
This is the fundamental flaw in semi-pelagianism (synergism/Arminianism).
God: works all things/events (even the wicked acts of men) according to HIS holy/divine purpose.
@rkg62976 No creature could do anything unless God permitted it. God ALLOWS men to go against His will and sin. But you believe God by His sovereign decree controls and brings to pass every single thing that happens. Gen6 shows clearly that not everything that happens is according to what God wants to happen. I ask again from Jer7. Did God decree these parents to murder their children? Did He want it to happen?
2) Prescriptive-- found in God's Laws, commands...etc.
Therefore, in Jer.7, what was the problem with "these parent murdering their children?" They were breaking God's prescriptive will...which result is always justifiable condemnation.
@rkg62976 Sorry, but you are missing the point. Are you saying God wanted those people to murder their children? If God didn't want them to, then why did He decree it? Honestly, long before those people ever thought to kill their children you believe God thought of it, planned it and decreed them to do it. The God of Calvinism and Him alone is the one who decided it should happen. In Calvinism what the people want is irrelivant. God makes the people want whatever God wants them to want.
@shteve77 You said, "Are you saying God wanted those people to murder their children? If God didn't want them to, then why did He decree it?"
Again, your confusing God's decretive will, and His prescriptive will (see my comments below). God's "decree" was that Messiah be murdered (crucified unjustly), but the murder itself goes against His prescriptive will (Acts 4:28).
@rkg62976 You still didn't answer the question. If God didn't want those people in Jeremiah to murder their own children then why did He decree they would? In Calvinism the ONLY reason they killed their children is becasue God decreed do it. If God didn't decree this wicked act it would never have happened. God and God alone decided it should happen, He caused it to happen by decree but apparently He didn't really want it to happen????? Complete nonsense.
@shteve77 There is a difference between "ultimate" causation (which attribute belongs to God alone), and "secondary" (or, "proximate") causation (which attribute belongs to creatures: Satan, demons, humans..etc.).
1) God is the Ultimate Cause of all things that happen temporally ("in time"). If He weren't, then one would be a dualist (believing that there are at least two, equally opposed forces in the universe: one good, the other evil.
@rkg62976 Even the very words you use show you to be wrong. You say God is the ULTIMATE CAUSE, men are SECONDARY. Which is responsible for something, the primary and ultimate cause, or the secondary? The Primary of course! You have a ridiculous situation where God is given the repsonsibility for absolutely everything that happens as the primary cause of all things including sin, but somehow men who can only do what God has pre-decreed for them to do, are repsonsible for sin!
@shteve77 "You say God is the ULTIMATE CAUSE, men are SECONDARY. Which is responsible for something, the primary and ultimate cause, or the secondary?"
A. Again, you don't have a proper definition of "responsibility". God is not "responsible" for anything, including the creation. Responsible means: 1) the giving of a response; and, 2) implies an higher authority to whom to give a response. God is not responsible for anything, including creation. He simply spoke, and it came to be.
@rkg62976 You are just playing with words. God is not "repsonsible" for anything you say?
Come on, call it what you like, you believe God is the ultimate cause of all sin, therefore he is the cause, the one who can be blamed/credited with the fact that each sin occurs.
@rkg62976 When someone puts a bullet in a gun and pulls the trigger, is the bullet responsible for the murder? The person as the primary cause? Or the bullet as the secondary? Of course the person is responsible.
If an adult forces a child to commit a crime who is the one responsible? The child who can only do what the adult makes him, or the adult who didn't actually commit the crime but is the one behind it? Of course the adult.
@shteve77 The difference between a bullet, and a person is that a human being is a psychological being, whereas a bullet is an inanimate object. An inanimate object can have no responsibility. It is also the reason that monergists have always refuted "naturalistic determinism", and have always only supported "divine determinism".
If there are any other "primary causes" in the universe, then God is not omnipotent. This leads to the fallacy of dualism.
@rkg62976 In Calvinism a person is not free to do as they please but only as God has pre-decreed for them to do. We are just puppets who do what God has decreed for us to do. Long before any man ever thinks to commit a sin the God of Calvinsim thought of the sin and decreed the man to commit the sin. How can puny man go against Gods omnipotent decree? He can't, so in Calvinism men may as well be inanimate objects, just like a bullet they do what the primary or ultimate cause makes them do.
@rkg62976 As for Acts 4. God knows the future. God knows what men will freely choose to do if they are given the chance. God knew that if He made Herod King and put Pilate in power that they would freely choose to have Christ crucified. God himself was the "vicitm" of this crime. His innocent Son was sent to the cross to save men from their sins. This doesn't mean God wants and plans all sins (like the murder of children) to happen....cont...
@shteve77 Acts 4:27-28 says nothing about God's "knowledge of the future". It does, however, say that God ordained ("decreed") what would happen to the incarnate Son.
Indeed, every wicked man responsible for the murder of Messiah participated willingly. Monergists have never denied that man has a will.
@rkg62976 If you know all things including the future and you put a person like pilate into power knowing full well that He will act in a certain way given the oppurtunity, then you can work things according to your own plan even though the men involved have freely chosen.
Exactly, monergists have always said that wicked men behave in accordance with their sinful nature ("wills"). The problem is that you seem to think that sinful men "freely" choose; whereas the biblical presentation is that sinful men behave in sinful ways because they are SLAVES of sin, and are NOT free. It is the same with the man of God: He is a SLAVE to Christ, and FREE from sin.
@rkg62976 Firstly, Adam was not a slave to sin yet you believe God decreed Him to fall.
Secondly, it is irrelivent what men will to choose because the ONLY factor in deciding whether they will sin or not is if God wants them to sin and has caused it by irresistible, sovereign, omnipotent decree.
@rkg62976 ....Clearly in Gen6 we see that God allows men to go against His will and do things that are not His will. "The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become....The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain."
The Calvinist God predends that He is greived by the sin that men commit but He is secretly delighted because they are doing exactly what He planned and what He wills with His "will of decree". God is not skitzo.
@shteve77 Clearly, there is a difference between the decretive will of God (from which ALL events in time stem), and the prescriptive (or, "preceptive") will of God (contained in His commands; specifically, the Decalogue).
In Gen.6, by what standard were the deeds of most of the inhabitants of the earth deemed "wicked"? By God's preceptive will (found in His commands, and law)..
@rkg62976 You are missing the point. You are saying that in Gen6 those people violated the standards that God set and revealed as His will for mankind. On this we both agree, but you actually believe that it was God Himself who used His omnipotent power to cause by sovereign decree those men to do the very things that God says He hates, but He actually wanted and in fact caused them to commit by sovereign decree.
@shteve77 "...you actually believe that it was God Himself who used His omnipotent power to cause by sovereign decree those men to do the very things that God says He hates, but He actually wanted and in fact caused them to commit by sovereign decree."
Wrong! In Gen.6, every human being (save Noah and his family) were acting according to their own sinful wills/hearts/minds...etc. Their sin nature stemming from the fall of our first parents.
@rkg62976 No, you're wrong, in Gen6, every human being (according to Calvinism) was acting according to God's will and His sovereign decree. They were doing exactly what God wanted them to do and then God pretends to be greived that they were behaving so wickedly but actually they were doing axactly what He caused by decree.
...
Again, you still have not answered the question from Jer, If God didn't want those parents to murder their children then why did He decree they would???????
@rkg62976 Have you ever heard of a man who has shot another person appearing before a judge and trying to argue that "I am the primary or ultimate cause, but I am not the one responsible, the bullet is the one who shot the person, the bullet is guilty, I am innocent"?
@shteve77 If you honestly believe that any creature (man, angel..etc.) is the ultimate/primary cause of anything at all, then you really need to think about what it means that God is Creator.
You obviously need to distinguish between:
1) Primary/Ultimate causation (which attribute belongs to God ALONE!), and
2) Secondary/Proximate causation (this belongs to creatures...man, angels...etc.).
@rkg62976 James1"13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed."
Men are the only cause of their own sin. God doesn't even tempt men to sin, let alone decree they will. God has created men and given them freedom to rebel against Him and go against His will, God knows what they will do but God is not their cause of their wicked acts.
@shteve77 1) No monergist is saying that God tempts anyone; it is Satan who is the tempter (Mt.4:3; 1Thes.3:5).
You said, "Men are the only cause of their own sin". Obviously, Satan is involved in tempting mankind to sin (Gen.3:4-5,14).
There is a difference between God "tempting man to sin" (which statement is false), and "decreeing that man will sin" (which statement is truthful *see Acts 4:27-28, where the sin of murder [of the Messiah] has been "determined before to be done" (KJV).
@rkg62976 So the Calvinist God is so innocent of evil that He doesn't even tempt men to sin but actually He pre-determines the sinful acts they will commit and then He uses His omnipotent power to make sure they will commit those sinful acts that He has decided for them to commit, the man actually has no choice at all but somehow the man is responsible and God is completely innocent. What nonsense.
@shteve77 btw, I didn't quote the Westminster Confession, I quoted the 1689 Baptist Confession (these are two, distinct confessions of faith). Just wanted to clear that up ;)
Part 2 The word (foreknowledge) in Romans 9 God chooses us before we do any good or bad and uses a example of Jacob and Esau. The decison was not based upon Esau rejecting the birthright but God chooseing Jacob over Esau. It is clear--Read it carefully. God makes this decision before we are born, in His foreknowedge, so that His Election is based upon His Calling not our will. Please read it and reread it. Thank you May God Bless
Stan6468 1 month ago
@Stan6468 Where is the word (foreknowledge) in Rom9?
The verse says "in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.”
God didn't elect Jacob to salvation & Esau to Hell. It says God elected the older to server the younger.
God Chose Jacob, not Easu to be the Father of the nation the Messiah would come through.
"...the people of Israel. ...and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ"Rom 9:4-5
shteve77 1 week ago
Mr. Geisler made a bad assumption and has a incorrect understanding of the word (foreknowledge) He assumed it meant (someone who accepts the Gospel) Due to this misunderstanding he says those who believe in Doctrine of Grace (calvism) reject or don't follow the concept of (foreknowlege). This is absolutely wrong. God's foreknowledge is defined in Romans 9 chapter. We must follow God's defination of words not man's. Part 1 answer
Stan6468 1 month ago
Nowhere does the Bible tell us what exactly God foreknows about the elect. Nor does it say that Christ came to be the propitiation for the sins ‘of the elect only.’ To conclude otherwise is to follow fallen human logic to its conclusion. This is usually done after changing definitions of words and/or adding to the Bible which both sides of this argument practice frequently.
james3v6 1 month ago
The Holy Spirit has great power but does not force. Nowhere in the Bible does God force any decision upon man. And that forceful spirit that causes people to fall over when Benny Hinn touches them--that's not God's Spirit. God respects the will of man and does not force it.
mcfirefly3 3 months ago
He even managed to say that calvinists doesent believe that man have to believe to get saved. amazing how confused he is
Aslak1Simonsen 4 months ago
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@Aslak1Simonsen In Calvinism you are saved and regnerated before you believe. Scripture says you are saved and regenerated as a RESULT of believing. "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."Jn20:30
shteve77 4 months ago
@shteve77. Yes you may have life if you believe, but that is talking about justification to eternal life, which you get by the result of doing the act of believing on Him who was crucified for you. Always look at the context which a word stands. Life doesent always mean spiritual life which you get in regeneration called the new birth from above. It is written that those who believed on His name was born of God and not of the will of man. Can it even be more clear?
Aslak1Simonsen 4 months ago
@Aslak1Simonsen Sory, but John is telling the people reading His gospel that He recorded the miracles that Jesus did so that they might believe that Jesus is the Son of God because BY believing they would have life. Until a person believes they are dead. John1:12 make it clear that it is to those who believe, to those who receive Him, that God makes His children. "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God".
shteve77 4 months ago
@shteve77.I believe John is saying that, those who believed on His name, who recieved Him GAVE he right to become children of God. So, those who believe on Jesus, have God given authority, and right to become Gods children and to be conformed unto His image. Then I believe John goes on to tell us something of the nature of those children. They were born NOT of the will of man, but of God. However, nice to meet you. There is alot of info abut this, and its better to read that, then comments on YT
Aslak1Simonsen 4 months ago
@Aslak1Simonsen John is saying that it is to THOSE that believe, to those that RECIEVE Him, to these God grants the right to become His children. The fact that someone believes that Jesus is the Christ doesn't save them just of itself. God promises to do something for those who recieve Him. It is God's will and God's choice to make men His children and God promises to do this for ALL WHO BELIEVE. It doesn't say "to all that God chooses" it says to all who believe on Christ.
shteve77 4 months ago
@shteve77.. Yes and our old faith is and have always been that those who believe, is those who are chosen of God. Which is aboundently explained in John 6. It is God makes us willing to believe. simple, logical, scriptural and true.
Aslak1Simonsen 3 months ago
@Aslak1Simonsen The Holy Spirit certainly convicts men but He doesn't "make them willing to believe". He allows them to accept or refuse salvation. If God chooses who to save He must force to believe or else He can't be sure that those He has chosen will believe. Further to this, your assertion is denied by scriptures such as Luk7:30 "But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.)" How could they reject God's purpose?
shteve77 3 months ago
@shteve77. Well you must agree that your assertion goes against symbolism used speaking of salvation throughout the whole Bible. (born again, raised from death, Gods heart operation in Ezek 36, God freeing you from sin-slavery, the circomsission of the Heart, God gives spiritual eyes and ears to those He saves etc etc) And He certainly does this with force, the great transforming force of the Holy Spirit, which is sent into the hearts of those who believe.
Aslak1Simonsen 3 months ago
@Aslak1Simonsen Yes I certainly agree the Holy Spirit comes in and tranforms those who believe, but in Calvinism they are transformed and regenerated BEFORE they have believed and this is non biblical.
shteve77 3 months ago
@shteve77. Yes, sorry Im wrong there I ment to write that God does that so that the result is that they believe. to say that ppl with a heart of stone, dead and none existing spiritual life is a description of people who are believers is torture of scripture indeed. please think through it, you may be wrong as me also, but I believe Im right and you are wrong.
Aslak1Simonsen 3 months ago
@Aslak1Simonsen Well if Calvinism is correct then those that perish because God created them intending for them to perish. Scripture says thae the Pharisees (who perished in their sin) perished because they rejeted God's purpose for their lives, showing that God intended something else for them!
shteve77 3 months ago
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@shteve77. Yes, sorry Im wrong there I ment to write that God does that so that the result is that they believe. to say that ppl with a heart of stone, dead and none existing spiritual life is a description of people who are believers is torture of scripture indeed. please think through it, you may be wrong as me also, but I believe Im right and you are wrong.
Aslak1Simonsen 3 months ago
The pharisees are rejecting Gods Law and intention because the are slaves of their own sin.. but you should dobbel check your translation of that verse... my translation is different.
Aslak1Simonsen 3 months ago
@Aslak1Simonsen Sorry, but that makes no sense. How can anyone reject the "intention" of the God of Calvinism? What was it that God intended for them and why didn't He make them do it if He intended it for them?
I quoted the NIV "rejected God’s purpose for themselves", The NASB says "rejected God’s purpose for themselves", the KNJV says "rejected the will of God for themselves", the ESV "rejected the purpose of God for themselves".
shteve77 3 months ago
@Aslak1Simonsen And Acts7:51 "You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!".
In what way did these people resist the Holy Spirit? What was it the Holy Spirit was wanting them to do, and why didn't they do it?
shteve77 3 months ago
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@shteve77.. Yes and our old faith is and have always been that those who believe, is those who are chosen of God. Which is aboundently explained in John 6. It is God who makes us willing to believe. simple, logical, scriptural and true.
Aslak1Simonsen 3 months ago
@Aslak1Simonsen He is confused. Just like Calvinists do believe that one has to accept salvation which is the gift of God. We do have to accept it. It is faith. But we can only do this by grace. the question is how can we accept the gift. not if we accept it or not.
MrBlackhaw 3 months ago
If God suspends Himself to fre will He pauses His own existence which is impossible. God cannot have billions of attributes and virtues acting in power independent.Where would His personal freedom be.? A power existing not His own or a love or a knowledge means God is not free.Virtue outside of God acting independently means God is not living His Virtues and Attributes un interrupted therefore suspending His life, impossible.All I ask is you think about what I'm writting before you react.
polopowers1 5 months ago
@polopowers1 Scripture says "The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become....The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain."
If God here is the one directing everything men do including their wicked acts then He is either skitzo or insincere when He says He is grieved and His heart filled with pain.
shteve77 4 months ago
Faith is not produced by human intellect but above personal reason. Norman says I'm smart enough to have genuine faith and choose it. By grace are you saved through faith that not of yourself. He believes God can suspend His knowledge and power unto independent free will power. This would mean God, self existing life by virtue and attribute suspends His life for millions independent virtues of faith with attributes of power But God cannot suspend attributes He would suspend Himself in doing so.
polopowers1 5 months ago
@polopowers1 You appear to be saying that an omnipotent, all knowing God can't create creatures and give them freedom to make free choices or else He ceases to be God? Why can't a God who has all power and can do what ever He chooses, choose to make men with a free will and allow them to choose to do either good or evil?
shteve77 5 months ago
@shteve77 I'm not sure anyone has ever changed their opinion on this topic on either side by utubt dialogue.But I'll give what I understand fron scribture. First a question which came first God's substance ( His Spirit ) or His Holy Character love mercy goodness etc. ?They are simultaneous.God declares His glory of perpetual life the simultaneous Spirit, Virtue existence never being suspended.God cannot suspend knowledge or power God must perpetuate Himself in Spirit and Virtue. ( more next )
polopowers1 5 months ago
@polopowers1 Look, what you are really claiming is that God who can do anything he wants and by nature has personal freedom, is limited and He is not actually free to allow any of His creatures to make free choices, otherwise somehow He is not God anymore. If God has chosen to allow men freedom to make choices then He is free to do that. The second point is that if men are not free to make choices then God is responsible for all they do, making God the source of all wickedness and evil.
shteve77 4 months ago
@shteve77. In conclusion: you dont believe God is responsible for the world and its history... :S - thats unbiblical
Aslak1Simonsen 4 months ago
@Aslak1Simonsen In conclusion I don't believe that God is responsible for sin and for evil. Men are responsible for choosing to do evil.
God himself in Jer7 denies being responsible for these wicked people murdering their own children. You believe God willed and planned for them to do it.
"Jeremiah 7:31, They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind."
shteve77 4 months ago
@shteve77. So you dont believe God is responsible for what has taken place in history so far? I guess you agree that sin has been a part of history, and the logical undenible conclusion must be that you dont see the Creator God, as responsible for the history of the world. And that is just unbiblical. If you believe those scriputres which you quoted denies Gods controll over everything which happens in time and space, you must take a better look, and reflect and meditate over them.
Aslak1Simonsen 4 months ago
@Aslak1Simonsen No I don't believe God is responsible for sin. God allows sin. If you believe God is responsible for sin then you are worshipping a god who is evil. Scripture says God "is light, in Him is no darkenss at all". The Calvinist God is the source of all darkness and evil. I quoted Jer7 where God himself says He is not responsible for what those people did, you didn't even attempt to explain what the verse is actually saying if I am reading it wrongly? You should meditate over it.
shteve77 4 months ago
Who gives a fuck?!
Miming85 5 months ago
The Bible is full of examples of election:
Abraham was chosen to be the father of God's people. Why not someone else?
Israel was chosen rather than any other nation. Why not another nation?
Jesus chose His disciples/apostles. Why not other fishermen, etc.?
Paul was chosen by Christ. Why not someone who hadn't persecuted the church?
These are just a few examples of God's election. You wouldn't get the gift if you wouldn't receive it.
metanoeo1 7 months ago
@apollos6640, I agree with everything you said except your use of the word arbitrary. God is a God of purpose. Read "The Purpose-Driven Life". Rick Warren will tell you that God is a God of purpose because Rick is a monergist like I am and His thinking is shaped by the view of the sovereignty of God presented in the Bible.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104
You lost some credability when you cited rick warren in a positve light. Then I read your posts and you lost the rest of your credability. What Bible are you studying?!?
(your quote) "God withholds salvation from the 'non-elect'. He doesn't want them to be saved. He tells them they can be saved but withholds it from them."
So you believe that God is a liar? I won't even list the scriptures you have buthered here. Seek for the truth brother while it can still be found.
Moving2U 7 months ago
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@Jared104
You lost some credability when you cited rick warren in a positve light. Then I read your posts and you lost the rest of your credability. What Bible are you studying?!?
(your quote) "God withholds salvation from the 'non-elect'. He doesn't want them to be saved. He tells them they can be saved but withholds it from them."
So you believe that God is a liar? I won't even list the scriptures you have buthered here. Seek for the truth brother while it can still be found.
Moving2U 7 months ago
@Jared104 I've summarized yur views, if I'm wrong, explain it to me in detail. Thanks :)
"God arbitralily (or for His own GLORY) purposely creates & knits ALL people DEAD in the womb, w/ a Sinful Nature & Sovereignly Ordained to SIN, born DEAD, lacking ALL ability to repent, the VAST MAJORITY PREDESTINED for Eternal Damnation "Though they were NOT YET BORN", outside of ANY of their actions "BEFORE having done ANYTHING either goor or bad, in order that Gods purpose of ELECTION might continue."
apollos6640 7 months ago
@shteve77, God loves because it's who He is. If He has chosen you and not someone else, it's not because of anything good in you so there's no room for boasting. You don't ask why He chose you just like if you're born a prince you don't ask why, you just accept it.
Jared104 7 months ago
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@shteve77, God does not withhold faith and repentance from the elect. He keeps His word when He says that those who come to Him He will not cast out. Like I said before, if election is not unconditional then His love is not unconditional. He simply loves because He loves..
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 God withholds salvation from the 'non-elect'. He doesn't want them to be saved. He tells them they can be saved but withholds it from them.
The God is the Bible is love but how is it 'loving' for God to create most of mankind (prepared as vessels of destruction), let the sun rise on them for a few short years while they toil in a wicked, fallen world full of misery and death and then burn them for all eternity in Hell? How can you say God loves them when He could have saved them?
shteve77 7 months ago
@Shteve77 , Jared104 said, "For one thing, when God saves us, He regenerates us and grants us faith and repentance."
MAN is created DEAD in the WOMB by God, God is purposely creating defective creatures 'in His image', preprogrammed to Sin & Only Sin, lacking ALL ability to Repent or Beg for Mercy, PREDESTINED for the Lake of Fire, even HATED like Esau, "BEFORE doing anything either good or bad", then is CONDEMNED for doing the very thing he was, PREDESTINED & Ordained to do! That's NOT justice
apollos6640 7 months ago
@Shteve77 imagine if I said, "Our parents sinned in breaking the Law, they were sentenced to DEATH. The JUDGE was pleased with their Sin, according to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having PURPOSED to ORDER IT to His own glory."
What would you think of that Judge?
apollos6640 7 months ago
@apollos6640 Would I think that judge hates sin, is grieved by sin, is all loving, merciful and kind? No! I don't think so!
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77 When Jesus came to save sinners was that showing that God is not grieved by sin? God was going to pardon sinners who deserved their punishment. So, did that show that He didn't hate sin?
Jared104 7 months ago
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@Jared104 If God is the one who decrees men to sin in the first place then how can they go against God's omnipotenet decree and not sin?
Do you honestly think that God causing the sun to rise each day on the lost for a few years while they toil in the fallen world only so He can send them to Hell for all eternity is LOVE?
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77, I prefer the way that the Westminster Confession of Faith says it. Notice how carefully they worded this section concerning the fall:\
Our first parents, being seduced by the subtilty and temptations of Satan, sinned, in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin, God was pleased, according to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 So do you believe as all other Calvinists I've spoken with that God decreed the fall?
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77 I would rather use the words of Rick Warren and say that God deliberately allowed the fall.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 I agree that God obviously permitted the fall, but in Calvinsim God controls all things by sovereign decree. Do you believe He actually decreed the fall?
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77 I wouldn't say it that way. God permitted it. God allowed it. God used it. But God is not the author of sin.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 If you believe God only permitted the fall then you are certainly at odds with what Calvinism teaches. Calvinists often say that God permitted it, that God allowed it but if you push them hard enough they will admit that it was a foregone conclusion and that God indeed did decree it.
You haven't answered, Do you think that God causing the sun to rise each day on the lost for a few years while they toil in a fallen world only so He can send them to Hell for all eternity is LOVE?
shteve77 7 months ago
@Jared104 The god of Calvinism taunts the unbeliever saying "that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved" (Rom10:9) all the while knowing that he (the god of Calvinism) has withheld from them the faith to do so. Calvinism presents a false gospel (good news) that for most people is no good news at all, and doesn't really offer eternal life or salvation.
shteve77 7 months ago
@Jared104 7, "if a judge pardons two people on death row when there were four in all, it is no injustice for Him to let the other two die."
It is UNJUST to let those 2 UNREPENTANT Sinners back on the street-- they've done that in Massachusetts, and one sinner was pardoned 2x, each time he was caught & convicted of pedephilia. They finally caught him a 3rd time and had to Try him in a different STATE because of the Unjust JUDGE!
Your argument fails miserably! There's no way to justify it
apollos6640 7 months ago
@apollos6640 For one thing, when God saves us, He regenerates us and grants us faith and repentance. God meets the requirements for salvation. The judge is not exercising justice but mercy.
Jared104 7 months ago
He loves them with common grace according to Jesus. He causes the sun to rise on the just and the unjust. And, this is the basis for us loving everyone, even our enemies.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 Do you honestly think that God causing the sun to rise each day on the lost for a few years while they toil in the fallen world only so He can send them to Hell for all eternity is LOVE? I don't think so.
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77, God did not make Adam and Eve sin. They chose to sin. You cannot have love without the ability to choose vice over virtue.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at His own pleasure arranged it.” [John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 23, Section 7]
Even the fall of Adam, and through him the fall of the race, was not by chance or accident, but was so ordained in the secret counsels of God.” [Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, p. 234]
shteve77 7 months ago
@Jared104 “Surely, if God had not willed the fall, He could, and no doubt would, have prevented it; but He did not prevent it: ergo He willed it. And if He willed it, He certainly decreed it” [Jerome Zanchius, The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination]
“Not only did God have a perfect foreknowledge of the outcome of Adam’s trial; not only did His omniscient eye see Adam eating of the forbidden fruit, but He decreed beforehand that he should do so.” [A.W. Pink The Sovereignty of God]
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77, I don't believe of course that God loves the world in the same way that He loves His own people. God did not make Adam and Eve sin. He gave them freewill. You cannot have love without the ability to choose vice over virtue. They sinned of their own accord.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 But don't you as a Calvinist believe that God decrees all things and the God decreed Adam and Eve to fall?
You have previously said that "God desires and loves all men"
Exactly in what way would you say that God "loves" those that He created only for the purpose of burning them in Hell for ever?
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77, if a judge pardons two people on death row when there were four in all, it is no injustice for Him to let the other two die. He didn't have to pardon any of them but chose to pardon two of them. The other two got what they deserved but the two that were pardoned got what they didn't deserve. It's the same way with us. If we go to hell, we get what we deserve. If we go to heaven, we get what we don't deserve. That's the point I was trying to make with the previous illustration.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 Firstly, in Calvinism it is the judge who decreed that the men would sin and be on death row in the first place.
Secondly, you still have the same problem. It's got nothing to do with what they deserve. If the judge pardons one and makes sure the other is executed you certainly wouldn't believe the judge if He said that He loved the other man and also wanted to set him free aswell.
shteve77 7 months ago
A better example rather than two drowning children is two people who are homeless because they burned their houses down. You give both of them an apartment for a while (common grace), but eventually you give one of them a mansion andrhe other one you kick out on the street. They both deserved to be on the street b/c they burned their house down. But, you only give one of them a place to live. There was no injustice.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 Your example fails, because the same analogy appllies. If you give one a mansion and you kick the other out on the street, no one would ever believe you if you said you loved both of them, and you wanted both of them to live in a palace.
shteve77 7 months ago
Hell was made for the devil and his angels according to Jesus. According to Paul, the vessels of wrath are being prepared for destruction and in the context, there does seem to be some degree of intentionality in their preparation. Hell is the wrath of God. The wrath of God is prepared for the devil but the children of wrath are prepared for hell.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 Calvinists confuse Total Depravity, --- Only those who are regenerate can respond in saving faith to the Gospel. The Gospel message enables them to respond and ensures that they will if they are elect and if it is the appointed time. As Peter says, we were regenerated by the Word of God. It's the Gospel that causes the elect to be born again.
Jared104 7 months ago
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@Jared104 It's when believe that they are born again, not before. It is BY BELIEVING that we receive life.
Scripture says "But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."Jn20:31
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77, God has compassion on all He has made. He causes the sun to rise on the just and the unjust.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 So the Calvinist God has compassion on those that He created only for the purpose of burning in Hell for His glory?
If you came across two drowning children and you saved one of them, and then just watched while the other drowned (even though you could have saved the second child) would anyone believe you if you said "I really did love that second child, I really did want to save them". No! No one would believe you.
shteve77 7 months ago
desires all men to come to repentance. But there is something He desires more. In Arminianism, it is the preservation of man's freewill. In Calvinism, it is His own glory.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 So the all powerful and sovereign Calvinist God WANTS to save all men, but He is unable to, because it will reduce his Glory? Is this what you are saying?
shteve77 7 months ago
God loves all men and desires all
Jared104 7 months ago
I'm very disappointed in Dr. Geisler.
skoobalon 7 months ago
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skoobalon 7 months ago
@ 6:15 "while that is true" Uh oh. Here comes the "but".
@ 6:24 "The EXTREME calvinist"--gotta love it!
@ 6:30 "if it depends on your receiving it, then you get the credit" Yep! That's exactly correct! If you DO something to earn your salvation, then YOU CAN BOAST. That's why Paul said that your faith is NOT of yourself "lest any man should boast".
@ 6:38 He sure likes that big money analogy.
@ 6:54 "just impoverished" (?). How about just "DEAD".
@ 7:02 Works' Salvation!
skoobalon 7 months ago
@ 5:30 "YOU must", "YOU must", "YOU must make an act of faith" (?) That's works' salvation.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Eph 2:8-9)
What's the gift of God? Is it salvation? Is it grace? Is it faith? YES TO ALL THREE.
@ 5:58 "it came through your will" (?) Man's free will sure is ALMIGHTY!
Just let it go!
My Bible reads "NOT the will of the flesh", and "NOT of the will of man".
skoobalon 7 months ago
@ 5:19 THIS IS THE APEX OF DISHONESTY!!!! DR. GEISLER STOPPED THE READING AT VERSE 12!!! Verse 12 ends with a COLON, not a PERIOD. Please continue on into verse 13:
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (Joh 1:12-13).
See it?
...NOT of blood, NOR of the will of the flesh, NOR of the will of man, BUT OF GOD.
skoobalon 7 months ago
@ 4:35 The dead man must be made alive, in order to receive the gift. Dr. Geisler, please make a trip to your local cemetery and prophesy to those dead dry bones. According to your fallacious logic, those dead, dry bones will dig their way out of their graves to receive the gift of God. NONSENSE!
Behold, I [Jehovah] will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: (Eze 37:5).
Life must come to the dead sinner BEFORE he can receive anything, right, Mr. Deadman in the local cemetery?
skoobalon 7 months ago
@ 4:14 You must be siting John 3:36 (the "Dr" misquotes that verse). Well, in the very same chapter Jesus says,
"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. (Joh 3:19-20).
Could it be that "Dr" Geisler believes that man's basically good, apart from God?
skoobalon 7 months ago
@ 3:50 Yes, Dr Geisler, the Father must "give" you...All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (Joh 6:37). No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: (Joh 6:44).
@ 4:00 Oh, but it DOES teach that, "Dr" Geisler. ...as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. (Act 13:48). Notice it doesn't say "those who believed were ordained, but rather, those who were ordained, believed.
skoobalon 7 months ago
@ 1:47 "The extreme view"(?). You must mean "the Gospel", Dr Geisler.
@ 1:53 Here, my friends, we have the "Dr" revealing to us how MAN is sovereign.
@ 2:00 "the moderate view" (?). Ya gotta love it!
@ 2:02 God chooses those who would believe Him? That makes MAN sovereign!
@ 2:30 So the depraved sinner is not quite so depraved. That man has enough inherent grace to choose God.--interesting.
@ 3:15 So the "receiver" takes the gift?--not of blood...the will of the flesh, nor the man's will.
skoobalon 7 months ago
Foreknowledge = foreLOVE.
@ 0:05
"The one CONDITION is faith" (?) That's salvation by works! My bible says faith is the GIFT of God.
@ 0:19 "God decided who would be saved". Is not God sovereign? I guess "Dr" Geisler would have to admit God is NOT sovereign in man's redemption.
@ 0:22 "He selected only some". My Bible says a vast multitude that no man can number.
@ 0:43 "Their act" (?). Be careful now "Dr" Geisler. We wouldn't want to teach salvation by works.
skoobalon 7 months ago
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Romans 5:6 ESV
Jared104 7 months ago
In Matthew 5:43-45, Jesus tells us not to love only those who love us but to also love our enemies. It would be hypocritical for God to tell us to love our enemies and for Him to not love His enemies. If conditional election is true, then God is only loving those who love Him.
Jared104 7 months ago
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43 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:43-45 ESV
Jared104 7 months ago
Unconditional love is inexplicably bound to the idea of unconditional election. God's electing love is unconditional. Conditional election makes God's love conditional.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 Scripture declares that God is LOVE. Tell me, does the Calvinist God love all men?
shteve77 7 months ago
Scripture says we were all God's enemies, but that He so LOVED the World He sent His Son to die for men.
So if Christ loved me and you (as former enemies with God) and if He "unconditionally elected" us, then why does He not uncondtionally elect all men. Does He love them too?
shteve77 7 months ago
Paul talks about election in Ephesians 1. Then, in Ephesians 2, he says that we are dead in trespasses and sins. The fact that we are dead in trespasses and sins makes election necessary. John Wesley, the Arminian evangelist, believed in Total Depravity the same way that I do, but he countered it with a confusing doctrine called Prevenient Grace that is taught nowhere in scripture.
Jared104 7 months ago
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@Jared104 Rev20"each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death."
No, the fact that we are dead in our sins means that the second death is inevitible. Like a man on death row, His fate is sealed and there is nothing He can do to save himself.
The good news is that Christ took that death for all men and offers forgiveness to all who believe.
shteve77 7 months ago
@Jared104 Calvinists confuse Total Depravity, (Man's inability to do anything to make himself right with God and remove His guilt of sin), with a supposed INABILITY to even simply believe the message of the gospel. That Jesus is the Son of God, died for our sins and rose from the dead.
shteve77 7 months ago
I got excited in that last post. But, the way I see it, you can't have unconditional love without unconditional election. If God saved us because of anything good in us, notonly would there be no reason for Christ to die, He would be only laying down His life for those who loved Him. Don't even pagans love those who love them? While we were yetsinners, Christ died for the ungodly. That completely obliterates conditional election.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 There is nothing good in any of us. That is the whole reason we need a Saviour. If men were sinless then there would not be a reason for Christ to die. The fact that sinners simply believe the message of the gospel doesn't mean there is "anything good in them". Because we are sinners we need a Saviour. That does not mean that God has to unconditionally elect us. Scripture declares God loves all men and wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.1Tim2:4.
shteve77 7 months ago
I don't know about all that buddy. I like the simplicity of election. It's God, son. God's the one callin' the shots, not you, me or anybody else. Makes me wanna shout hallelujah and run around the church. I love Him so much. He died for me and for the rest of His sheep. I'm still amazed by grace. Grace made the difference for me.
Jared104 7 months ago
If someone gives you 10 G's, you could still get partial credit for it. Some people would foolishly say that they were thankful that they were smart enough to take the money thereby taking some of the credit for themselves.
Jared104 7 months ago
@Jared104 But Jesus didn't shy away from giving credit to those who expressed great faith in Him... (Matt 8:9-11, 15:26-28)... Calvinists are the ones who scream "bloody murder!" about "taking credit" or "robbing God of glory"...
sketchbook1 7 months ago
@Jared104 If someone handed you $10,000 and said, here take it, it's yours, you would hardly go and boast to your friends "I was so smart I got $10,000, or look at what I was cleaver enough to take). No! You would tell them that someone gave it to you as a gift, that you didn't need to do anything to earn it, they required nothing from you they just handed it to you. The person giving the gift is the one who gets all the credit.
shteve77 7 months ago
Where is he getting the so called moderate or extreme view? what he calls the extreme view is the view
bmd200 8 months ago
Beginning @1:20, Dr. Geisler compares two texts (Rom.8:29 & 1Pet.1:2), and seems to assert they are speaking of the same thing: God's "foreknowledge".
Rom.8:29-- "foreknow" (Gk. προέγνω, proegnō) is a VERB, not a noun! It means God intimately "knew" His people, as a husband "knows" his bride.
1 Pet.1:2-- "foreknowledge" (Gk. πρόγνωσιν, prognōsin) is a NOUN, not a verb!
*This is a fundamental exegetical error on Geisler's part, therefore, his conclusion is erroneous.
Soli Deo Gloria!
rkg62976 11 months ago
@rkg62976 If that be the case . It just proves He is Omniscient ! A all knowing GOD of the past, presence. Any the future.. {DEF-Having total knowledge; knowing everything: an omniscient deity; the omniscient narrator. n. 1. One having total knowledge. He having total knowledge.} GOD knew who would chose to be saved by faith in His word . Just proves He is GOD ! Who is all knowing ,all seeing, and ever present.
ylism 11 months ago
@ylism The fact that in Rom.8:29 the word "foreknew" is a VERB, proves that God, from eternity past, chose to enter into relationship with His people (the "elect"; those who were "predestined" unto salvation).
You seem to be missing the important point of the exegesis of Rom.8:29, as opposed to 1Pet.1:2... as does Dr. Geisler.
The text (Rom.8:29) is NOT asserting that "GOD knew who would choose"; rather, it's stating that God "knew" His people intimately from eternity past.
rkg62976 11 months ago
@rkg62976 Your missing the point as well. Of what i was saying. God said He knew the end from the beginning. Isa: 46,8 -13. Yes He is talking to Israel. His personal attributes never change. Or He would not be GOD ! That includes everyone that would be saved all through history intimately. Is that so hard to grasp. Verb's expresses existence, action, or occurrence.There's no problem with both in context. He needed not say who choose to be saved. He is talking to the church / the foreknown.
ylism 11 months ago
@ylism When Dr. Geisler asserts that one must have faith in order to receive salvation. Is he asserting that everyone has the ability to come to faith in Christ? I think he is.
However, the Bible is clear that man can only exercise faith (the act of believing) because God gives it as a gift (Eph.2:8, Gk.πίστεως, pisteōs-- NOUN).
Therefore, the verbal form of faith (Gk.πιστεύοντας, pisteuontas-- the "act" of believing) can only come after the noun (faith as a gift) has been given by God.
rkg62976 11 months ago
ylism said, "God said He knew the end from the beginning". I am not disputing that God "knows" the end from the beginning. That's not the point of our dialogue. Rather, it is whether God's knowledge stems from:
1) His passively taking in information as He looks down the corridors of time from eternity past (Arminian/Geisler), or,
2) His decreeing all events that would take place in His created universe (including evil) from eternity past (Reformed/Calvinist).
That's the issue, my friend ;)
rkg62976 11 months ago
@rkg62976 There is no darkness in God. No shades of gray. Only pure light. God would never go against Himself. These systems are of man thoughts. I agree with the word of God. No need to form fit anything then. Phil 2; 12 Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Rightly dividing the word of God. The best and only way to live.
God makes evil to come to pass. Is that what you think. God does allow bad things to happen. Never to hurt the one whom He died for
ylism 11 months ago
@ylism Do you believe that evil comes from a being completely independent of God? Are you a dualist?
If not, then you must admit that not even Satan can do anything outside of God's decree. And that, since there is evil in the fallen world, then God must have a purpose for it. I believe He does. God does nothing capriciously. He always has a purpose. "The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble" (Prov.16:4).
rkg62976 11 months ago
@rkg62976 U asked." Are you a dualist?" NO. God is not evil ! Satan is, and was cast down. Yes God does allow the devil to test. Take Job for instance. God does allow evil into our life. But never to destroy us. Evil men & satan do have a place in God's eternal plan. Take His chosen people Israel. At times He brought an evil people against them. To judge there sin's against Him. Does that make Him evil ? No. Far from it.
ylism 11 months ago
@ylism "God hath decreed in himself...freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established..." [1689 Baptist Confession, ch.3, sec.1].
1) God decreed that evil would be;
2) He is not the author of it, only secondary causes are.
I think we agree ;)
rkg62976 11 months ago
@rkg62976 Why quote the Westminster confession of faith? It is not inspired but simply the words of men.
If God has pre-determined everything that will come to pass including all sin then God must be the author of sin. If some one does good He only does it because God decreed him to do good and so God is responsible. If someone does evil then the ONLY factor in deciding if that evil will occur is God's decree. It occurs only because God willed it too happen, making God the Author of that sin.
shteve77 10 months ago
@shteve77 I quoted the Westminster Confession precisely because you have just made the mistake that the authors of the confession denied.
1)You fail to distinguish between God as the primary/ultimate cause of all things, and all creatures as secondary/proximate causes. 2)You fail to even give a definition of "responsibility". Could you please provide me with what you feel is the proper definition?
*I assert that God is not "responsible" for ANYTHING (including the creation); He spoke-It was
rkg62976 10 months ago
@rkg62976 Just because men deny something doesn't make them right. It is complete nonsense to say that God absolutely and completely controls everything that happens, but that men who do only what God has pre-determined them to do, are some how responsible for the evil that God decreed they will commit. Calvinist's proclaim a 'holy' God who controls everything men do and them blames men for doing the very thing that He caused them to do by His sovereign decree.
shteve77 10 months ago
@shteve77 "Calvinist's proclaim a 'holy' God who controls everything men do and them blames men for doing the very thing that He caused them to do by His sovereign decree"
Wow, I don't know how much more fallacious mud-slinging I can take. So if you cannot even define for me what "responsibility" ("responsibility" also implies "blame") means, how do you expect to even have a conversation?
Please don't respond anymore, if you cannot give a rational argument.
rkg62976 10 months ago
@rkg62976 Responsible-"Being the primary cause of something and so able to be blamed or credited for it."
In Calvinism God decrees everything that happens. Everything that occurs including all mens' wicked sins happen only because God decreed them to happen. If God didn't decree an evili act it wouldn't occur. In Calvinism God is the source and author of all sin. In Jer7:31 the reason they murdered their own children was because God wanted them to, God planned it and God brought it to pass.
shteve77 10 months ago
@shteve77 Your definition of "responsibility" is flawed.
Responsibility:
1) implies "the giving of a response";
2) implies an higher authority to whom to give a response.
Therefore,
1) God does not have to "give a response" for anything He does, because,
2) There is no higher authority to whom God must give a response.
Hence: God is not responsible for anything (including creation: He spoke, and it was); He simply works all things according to the good council of His own will (Eph.1:11).
rkg62976 10 months ago
@rkg62976 Firstly, my definition of responsibility is straight out of the English dictionary, and I am communicating to you what I mean when I say that in Calvinism God is responsible for all sin.
Honestly, how can you say God is not responsible for anything including creation? God created. He is the only cause. He is the one who gets the credit. If it were not for Him the universe would not exist. In Calvinism all sin has been planned and decreed by God. He brings it to pass.
shteve77 10 months ago
@shteve77 I would like to know what Dictionary you are using that gives you the fallacious definition of "responsibility" you provided. Reference please? Not only this, but "dictionaries" are not theological, or philosophical.
Notice that I did NOT deny that God Created all things; you are failing to recognize my statement in light of the definition of "responsibility" I gave (which is theologically, and grammatically sound...unlike yours).
God simply spoke, and everything came into being.
rkg62976 10 months ago
@rkg62976 It is word for word from the Oxford English dictionary. It's also in their online dictionary, I just checked. If you are going to communicate using English then you can't just invent your own definitions of words.
Forget the word responsible. If God decrees all things that come to pass, including all sin then God and God alone is the reason that all sin happens. If He didn't decree it, it would not have happened. God is the cause, God is the one who is accountable, liable, guilty.
shteve77 10 months ago
@shteve77 Do you believe that God knew there would be sin in the world at the time He created it? Are you and Open Theist (utter heresy) which denies God's omniscience?
If you're not an Open Theist, then you must affirm that God created knowing His creation would fall into corruption. Now, the question is:
1) does your god simply react to man's fall? Or,
2) did God have purpose with regard to the fall.
rkg62976 10 months ago
@rkg62976 Yes, God knew Adam would fall. Yes God planned for a Saviour even before the fall because it would happen. The point is, did God plan to send a saviour because He knew Adam would freely choose to sin and bring all mankind under condemnation? Or Did God plan to send a Saviour because God decreed Adam to fall? I ask you again, If God decreed Adam to fall could Adam have gone against God's decree and obeyed? Did Adam really have a choice? If not, how is Adam guilty?
shteve77 10 months ago
@shteve77 Your question is in regard to what is known as "supralapsarianism", and "infralapsarianism"...there are monergists (Reformed/Calvinists) who take the former, and those who take the latter view.
Yes, God decreed that Adam would fall, and there was no way that Adam could not have fallen; yet, he did it by his own choice (this is called "compatibilism").
Q. "...how is Adam guilty?"
A. One must have a proper definition of "responsibility" in order to answer this question.
rkg62976 8 months ago
@rkg62976 If there is no way that Adam could not have fallen then actually Adam had no choice. The Calvinist God wanted Adam to fall and God used His power to make Adam fall. You make God responsible for sin, not Adam. If Adam had no choice and only did what God made him do by sovereign decree then the only factor involved in whether Adam sinned was God's choice and not Adam's.
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77 I would encourage you to study this issue further. I have said all I can say. If you don't see the clear examples of "compatibilism" in the Scriptures (Gen.50; Is.10; Acts 4:27-28...etc.), then I cannot help you any further than I have already attempted.
*For an excellent discussion of Theodicy (reconciling a Holy, Righteous God with the evil that exists in His created order), I recommend Dr. Gordon H. Clark's work, "God and Evil: the Problem Solved".
rkg62976 7 months ago
@rkg62976...Still you haven't answered the question from Jer??? If God didn't want those people to murder their own children then why did He decree them to do it? The ONLY reason in Calvinism that those people killed their own children was because God decreed it. If He never thought of this crime for them to commit and had never caused it by decree it would never have happened.
shteve77 7 months ago
@rkg62976 The Calvinist God decrees and brings to pass the very sin He says grieves Him. The ONLY reason men sin, in Calvinism is because God wants them to. Jer7:31"They have built the high places....to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind."
The Calvinists believe that it was God's will these people murder their children, that He decreed it and wanted it to happen.
shteve77 10 months ago
@shteve77 "The ONLY reason men sin, in Calvinism is because God wants them to..."
Men sin because of their sinful nature, which they inherited from Adam as their federal head.
Do you not believe that through Adam all were born sinners?
Did not God create everything GOOD, but by Adam's fall the whole of creation was affected?
Why do you then say such heinous lies, that Calvinism says, "people sin 'cuz God wants them to"?
Does God not have a prescriptive will, that everyone is to obey?
rkg62976 10 months ago
@rkg62976 Yes all men are condemned because of Adam's sin and sin becuase of the sinful nature they inherited. But why did Adam sin. Adam did not have a sinful nature. In Calvinism Adam sinned because God decreed Him too. Did Adam really have a choice if His sovereign, omnipotent creator decreed Adam to sin then could Adam have obeyed and not sinned?
In Calvinism of course people sin becuase God wants them to. If He didn't want them to He wouldn't have decreed it.
shteve77 10 months ago
@rkg62976 If God decreed Adam to sin then God imposed Irresistible evil on Adam. Scripture says "God is light, in Him is no darkness at all", yet the Calvinist God is the source of all evil, He planned it all and brings it to pass by His Omnipotent decree.
If someone shoots a person with a gun, the one who fired the gun is the cause. He can hardly blame the bullet for doing what He made the bullet do. If God is responsible for everything that happens then God is responsible for all sin.
shteve77 10 months ago
@shteve77 "If God is responsible for everything that happens then God is responsible for all sin." And I noticed you didn't address anything I said. You didn't (nor have you) given a definition of "responsibility".
Who was "responsible" for the crucifixion? Acts.4:27-28-- was it not wicked men?
But yet God "predestined" it to take place. So we have:
1) God's decree (which is infallible);
2) wicked men being held responsible for their own actions.
rkg62976 10 months ago
@shteve77 "Although God created man upright and perfect...Satan using the subtlety of the serpent to subdue Eve, then by her seducing Adam, who, without any compulsion, did willfully transgress the law of their creation, and the command given unto them, in eating the forbidden fruit, which God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory"
[1689 Baptist Confession, ch.6, sec.1]
rkg62976 10 months ago
@rkg62976 If God decrees all things that come to pass then God didn't just allow Adam to fall, God caused it by His sovereign, omnipotent decree. Do you believe God decreed the fall of Adam? Do you believe Adam actually had a choice and could have chosen to obey?
I also asked about Jer7. Do you believe that God decreed those parents to murder their children?
shteve77 10 months ago
@shteve77 If you believe that any mere creature (including Satan and the fallen angels) can do anything at all completely independent of God's decree, then you are a dualist.
You have more in common with Zoroastrianism than biblical Christianity.
This is the fundamental flaw in semi-pelagianism (synergism/Arminianism).
God: works all things/events (even the wicked acts of men) according to HIS holy/divine purpose.
Your god: is out of control of his own creation.
rkg62976 10 months ago
@rkg62976 No creature could do anything unless God permitted it. God ALLOWS men to go against His will and sin. But you believe God by His sovereign decree controls and brings to pass every single thing that happens. Gen6 shows clearly that not everything that happens is according to what God wants to happen. I ask again from Jer7. Did God decree these parents to murder their children? Did He want it to happen?
shteve77 10 months ago
@shteve77 The two "wills" of God:
1) Decreetive-- from which all that is, stems.
2) Prescriptive-- found in God's Laws, commands...etc.
Therefore, in Jer.7, what was the problem with "these parent murdering their children?" They were breaking God's prescriptive will...which result is always justifiable condemnation.
rkg62976 10 months ago
@rkg62976 Sorry, but you are missing the point. Are you saying God wanted those people to murder their children? If God didn't want them to, then why did He decree it? Honestly, long before those people ever thought to kill their children you believe God thought of it, planned it and decreed them to do it. The God of Calvinism and Him alone is the one who decided it should happen. In Calvinism what the people want is irrelivant. God makes the people want whatever God wants them to want.
shteve77 10 months ago
@shteve77 You said, "Are you saying God wanted those people to murder their children? If God didn't want them to, then why did He decree it?"
Again, your confusing God's decretive will, and His prescriptive will (see my comments below). God's "decree" was that Messiah be murdered (crucified unjustly), but the murder itself goes against His prescriptive will (Acts 4:28).
rkg62976 8 months ago
@rkg62976 You still didn't answer the question. If God didn't want those people in Jeremiah to murder their own children then why did He decree they would? In Calvinism the ONLY reason they killed their children is becasue God decreed do it. If God didn't decree this wicked act it would never have happened. God and God alone decided it should happen, He caused it to happen by decree but apparently He didn't really want it to happen????? Complete nonsense.
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77 There is a difference between "ultimate" causation (which attribute belongs to God alone), and "secondary" (or, "proximate") causation (which attribute belongs to creatures: Satan, demons, humans..etc.).
1) God is the Ultimate Cause of all things that happen temporally ("in time"). If He weren't, then one would be a dualist (believing that there are at least two, equally opposed forces in the universe: one good, the other evil.
2) Creatures are only ever Secondary Causes.
rkg62976 7 months ago
@rkg62976 Even the very words you use show you to be wrong. You say God is the ULTIMATE CAUSE, men are SECONDARY. Which is responsible for something, the primary and ultimate cause, or the secondary? The Primary of course! You have a ridiculous situation where God is given the repsonsibility for absolutely everything that happens as the primary cause of all things including sin, but somehow men who can only do what God has pre-decreed for them to do, are repsonsible for sin!
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77 "You say God is the ULTIMATE CAUSE, men are SECONDARY. Which is responsible for something, the primary and ultimate cause, or the secondary?"
A. Again, you don't have a proper definition of "responsibility". God is not "responsible" for anything, including the creation. Responsible means: 1) the giving of a response; and, 2) implies an higher authority to whom to give a response. God is not responsible for anything, including creation. He simply spoke, and it came to be.
rkg62976 7 months ago
@rkg62976 You are just playing with words. God is not "repsonsible" for anything you say?
Come on, call it what you like, you believe God is the ultimate cause of all sin, therefore he is the cause, the one who can be blamed/credited with the fact that each sin occurs.
shteve77 7 months ago
@rkg62976 When someone puts a bullet in a gun and pulls the trigger, is the bullet responsible for the murder? The person as the primary cause? Or the bullet as the secondary? Of course the person is responsible.
If an adult forces a child to commit a crime who is the one responsible? The child who can only do what the adult makes him, or the adult who didn't actually commit the crime but is the one behind it? Of course the adult.
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77 The difference between a bullet, and a person is that a human being is a psychological being, whereas a bullet is an inanimate object. An inanimate object can have no responsibility. It is also the reason that monergists have always refuted "naturalistic determinism", and have always only supported "divine determinism".
If there are any other "primary causes" in the universe, then God is not omnipotent. This leads to the fallacy of dualism.
rkg62976 7 months ago
@rkg62976 In Calvinism a person is not free to do as they please but only as God has pre-decreed for them to do. We are just puppets who do what God has decreed for us to do. Long before any man ever thinks to commit a sin the God of Calvinsim thought of the sin and decreed the man to commit the sin. How can puny man go against Gods omnipotent decree? He can't, so in Calvinism men may as well be inanimate objects, just like a bullet they do what the primary or ultimate cause makes them do.
shteve77 7 months ago
@rkg62976 As for Acts 4. God knows the future. God knows what men will freely choose to do if they are given the chance. God knew that if He made Herod King and put Pilate in power that they would freely choose to have Christ crucified. God himself was the "vicitm" of this crime. His innocent Son was sent to the cross to save men from their sins. This doesn't mean God wants and plans all sins (like the murder of children) to happen....cont...
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77 Acts 4:27-28 says nothing about God's "knowledge of the future". It does, however, say that God ordained ("decreed") what would happen to the incarnate Son.
Indeed, every wicked man responsible for the murder of Messiah participated willingly. Monergists have never denied that man has a will.
rkg62976 7 months ago
@rkg62976 If you know all things including the future and you put a person like pilate into power knowing full well that He will act in a certain way given the oppurtunity, then you can work things according to your own plan even though the men involved have freely chosen.
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77
Exactly, monergists have always said that wicked men behave in accordance with their sinful nature ("wills"). The problem is that you seem to think that sinful men "freely" choose; whereas the biblical presentation is that sinful men behave in sinful ways because they are SLAVES of sin, and are NOT free. It is the same with the man of God: He is a SLAVE to Christ, and FREE from sin.
Soli Deo Gloria!
rkg62976 7 months ago
@rkg62976 Firstly, Adam was not a slave to sin yet you believe God decreed Him to fall.
Secondly, it is irrelivent what men will to choose because the ONLY factor in deciding whether they will sin or not is if God wants them to sin and has caused it by irresistible, sovereign, omnipotent decree.
shteve77 7 months ago
@rkg62976 ....Clearly in Gen6 we see that God allows men to go against His will and do things that are not His will. "The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become....The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain."
The Calvinist God predends that He is greived by the sin that men commit but He is secretly delighted because they are doing exactly what He planned and what He wills with His "will of decree". God is not skitzo.
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77 Clearly, there is a difference between the decretive will of God (from which ALL events in time stem), and the prescriptive (or, "preceptive") will of God (contained in His commands; specifically, the Decalogue).
In Gen.6, by what standard were the deeds of most of the inhabitants of the earth deemed "wicked"? By God's preceptive will (found in His commands, and law)..
rkg62976 7 months ago
@rkg62976 You are missing the point. You are saying that in Gen6 those people violated the standards that God set and revealed as His will for mankind. On this we both agree, but you actually believe that it was God Himself who used His omnipotent power to cause by sovereign decree those men to do the very things that God says He hates, but He actually wanted and in fact caused them to commit by sovereign decree.
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77 "...you actually believe that it was God Himself who used His omnipotent power to cause by sovereign decree those men to do the very things that God says He hates, but He actually wanted and in fact caused them to commit by sovereign decree."
Wrong! In Gen.6, every human being (save Noah and his family) were acting according to their own sinful wills/hearts/minds...etc. Their sin nature stemming from the fall of our first parents.
rkg62976 7 months ago
@rkg62976 No, you're wrong, in Gen6, every human being (according to Calvinism) was acting according to God's will and His sovereign decree. They were doing exactly what God wanted them to do and then God pretends to be greived that they were behaving so wickedly but actually they were doing axactly what He caused by decree.
...
Again, you still have not answered the question from Jer, If God didn't want those parents to murder their children then why did He decree they would???????
shteve77 7 months ago
@rkg62976 Have you ever heard of a man who has shot another person appearing before a judge and trying to argue that "I am the primary or ultimate cause, but I am not the one responsible, the bullet is the one who shot the person, the bullet is guilty, I am innocent"?
shteve77 10 months ago
@shteve77 If you honestly believe that any creature (man, angel..etc.) is the ultimate/primary cause of anything at all, then you really need to think about what it means that God is Creator.
You obviously need to distinguish between:
1) Primary/Ultimate causation (which attribute belongs to God ALONE!), and
2) Secondary/Proximate causation (this belongs to creatures...man, angels...etc.).
Please do some more homework.
Soli Deo Gloria!
rkg62976 10 months ago
@rkg62976 James1"13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed."
Men are the only cause of their own sin. God doesn't even tempt men to sin, let alone decree they will. God has created men and given them freedom to rebel against Him and go against His will, God knows what they will do but God is not their cause of their wicked acts.
shteve77 10 months ago
@shteve77 1) No monergist is saying that God tempts anyone; it is Satan who is the tempter (Mt.4:3; 1Thes.3:5).
You said, "Men are the only cause of their own sin". Obviously, Satan is involved in tempting mankind to sin (Gen.3:4-5,14).
There is a difference between God "tempting man to sin" (which statement is false), and "decreeing that man will sin" (which statement is truthful *see Acts 4:27-28, where the sin of murder [of the Messiah] has been "determined before to be done" (KJV).
rkg62976 8 months ago
@rkg62976 So the Calvinist God is so innocent of evil that He doesn't even tempt men to sin but actually He pre-determines the sinful acts they will commit and then He uses His omnipotent power to make sure they will commit those sinful acts that He has decided for them to commit, the man actually has no choice at all but somehow the man is responsible and God is completely innocent. What nonsense.
shteve77 7 months ago
@shteve77 btw, I didn't quote the Westminster Confession, I quoted the 1689 Baptist Confession (these are two, distinct confessions of faith). Just wanted to clear that up ;)
rkg62976 10 months ago